We received the greatest
kindness and hospitality, and met with far greater courtesy and civility
than in the more outwardly polished and professedly cultivated parts of
the countries further south, especially when making inquiries from
people to whom we had not been "introduced"! The Shetlanders spoke good
English, and seemed a highly intelligent race of people. Many of the
men went to the whale and other fisheries in the northern seas, and
"Greenland's icy mountains" were well known to them.
On the island there were many wives and mothers who mourned the loss of
husbands and sons who had perished in that dangerous occupation, and
these remarks also applied to the Orkney Islands, to which we were
returning, and might also account for so many of these women being
dressed in black. Every one told us we were visiting the islands too
late in the year, and that we ought to have made our appearance at an
earlier period, when the sun never sets, and when we should have been
able to read at midnight without the aid of an artificial light.
Shetland was evidently in the range of the "Land of the Midnight Sun,"
but whether we should have been able to keep awake in order to read at
midnight was rather doubtful, as we were usually very sleepy.
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